Pocock calls for AI safety act after Medicare breach – as it happened

The opposition’s defence spokesperson, James Paterson, has questioned the timing of the prime minister’s announcement that an AI agent hacked Medicare.

Paterson made the claim on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night after Anthony Albanese publicly said that an AI agent developed by OpenAI hacked Medicare in June and that the tech giant only notified the government earlier this month using an email sent to a “public mailbox”.

Paterson told 7.30 he believed Albanese had chosen to make the announcement at the UN summit in New York, as part of his effort to stand up to “big tech” on AI.

The government has questions to answer about when they knew and … why the prime minister decided to disclose it in the way he did in the place he did at the time he did. But in terms of the nature of the potential of actual security breach this is the bottom end of the spectrum of seriousness.

I don’t think it was a coincidence. It neatly dove-tailed with the political agenda the prime minister has in New York City.

Paterson said he didn’t consider the breach to be overly serious because the data the AI agent accessed was made freely available to researchers and academics studying the health system, and was not personal or private in nature.

He said the breach was cause for “being alert but not alarmed”.

Nevertheless, he said Australians were “entitled to demand explanations and contrition” and to want high levels of confidence when entering into agreements with big tech companies such as OpenAI.